


Sirius Black; ABBA's biggest fan

by AoifeAnAmadan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Multi, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and im not getting enough of them, because comments are the only thing my gremlin brain wants, its honestly a vibe please do read it, later on though, mainly, okay squad want to read this more, thanks tik tok for bringing harry potter back to the mainstream, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AoifeAnAmadan/pseuds/AoifeAnAmadan
Summary: Sirius Black was a complicated person, but the most complicated thing about him was probably how he came to like the band ABBA. It started, like most good things in the Marauders’ lives, with Lily Evans. But before that, it started on the train to Hogwarts in 1971 when he punched James Potter in the face.A look into Sirius Black growing up in the family he did, with the friends he did, and into the person he did.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Sirius Black & James Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	1. Pre-ABBA

One thing that the majority of students at Hogwarts in 1977 didn't fully appreciate, or understand, was Sirius Black’s love of ABBA.

It was rare, at the time, for most Britons to love ABBA the way he did. It was even rarer for a wizard, a  _ pureblood _ wizard, to even know who they were. Sirius, however, adored their music. He might have been a super fan.

It started, like most good things in the Marauders' lives did, with Lily Evans.

But before even that, it started in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

It was 1971, a strange year. 66 people died in a crush at a Celtics vs Rangers match, the DUP political party was formed in Northern Ireland, the UK lifted all restrictions on gold ownership, and Sirius Black was off to Hogwarts. All events of equal importance in Sirius’s mind. 

A common misconception about Sirius Black in his time at Hogwarts was the idea that he was a raging Gryffindor from Day 1, red-blooded and lion-hearted. That’s probably because it’s what he and James liked to tell people. But no, in 1971 Sirius Black was as batty as his parents.

In his early youth, Sirius and his family were normal. Or as normal as fanatic, psychotic blood purists could be. They all got along, one big happy family because Sirius was 10. And when you’re ten, you do what your mother and father say. It didn’t cross Sirius’s mind that anything his parents said could’ve been wrong. Sirius didn’t understand the world, the real world. They didn’t leave the home very often and, in Black family tradition, the boys were homeschooled by a governess.

Sirius wanted to make his family, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, proud of him. He imagined his title: Sirius Black, a purebred, superior by birthright, Black-blooded, Noble and Most Ancient, future Slytherin. So Sirius did as he was told.

He learnt the family tree, the illegal magic, the Latin for so many useless words. If you ever needed to know how to say the parts of the oak leaf in Latin, Sirius was your man.

He learnt French,  _ french,  _ which Sirius thought was even more useless than Latin. He had the words  _ Toujours Pur  _ ingrained in his mind since the day he was born.

Sirius did it all. He endured it all for those early, inescapable years. The screaming, the throwing, the crying. He sat with Reggie on the stairs as they heard their parents shrieking, screaming, in the kitchen downstairs. He taught Reggie the parts of the oak leaf in Latin as plates crashed and shattered and echoed throughout the cold grey house. The walls creaked with the weight of the rage it held in. 

So, Sirius learned what he was meant to. He stood up straight, cut his hair when mother asked, spoke in hushed tones and recited the reasons the Blacks were the most respectable house on the face of the earth. And he believed it, through and through. His family wasn’t perfect but they were his family, and family was the most important thing there was.

In 1971 when Sirius boarded the train to Hogwarts, to Slytherin, he only lasted 40 minutes before he was on the floor wrestling a Mr James Potter over comments that had been made about the Potters and the Blacks. James was taller than Sirius, and stronger too, but Sirius was giving it his all, fighting like a dog while James laughed.

According to the boys, one family in the compartment was a filthy blood traitorous, ratlike, disgusting excuse for a pureblood family. And the other was a dirty, psycho, bloody spectacle of stupidity that the entire wizarding world thought were idiots by and by.

So, obviously, it wasn’t long before they were on the floor pulling at each other’s hair an trying to get an elbow into a nose. Sirius hadn’t realised how aggressive he could get, struggling there against James the utter  _ prat _ .

It was during this fight that Remus Lupin, a mediator at heart, accidentally walked into the cabin.

He opened the door, took one look and promptly shut it again, leaving the two boys on the floor, trying to roll around without banging their heads on the cramped benches. Remus got a whole five steps away before something made him turn back to stop them before they killed each other.

The sound of the door sliding open again made both of the boys freeze and lookup. Sirius was on the floor and James was on top of him, pinning him down. Both had their fists raised and ready to strike. 

Sirius, lying there about to get a box in the face, thought to himself that this strange boy who had come back to their compartment looked weird, but not in a bad way. He was taller than Sirius was, and taller than James as well. He was covered in scars, with one obvious one right across his nose. He had bags under his eyes and tons of dark blonde hair just sitting on his head, falling down into his eyes. He looked messy. He looked tired.

“Oi! What are you back here for?” For some inexplicable reason, James was grinning. He was sat there, on top of this short, pale, posh 10, nearly 11, year-old blood purist boy who was trying to kill him, and he was grinning.

“Well, I can’t just let you kill each other. I’d probably get in trouble.” Remus went to sit down on one of the benches, stepping over Sirius’s head.

It was then, the dirty bastard he was at the time, Sirius decided to strike up at James’s nose. He landed it too, strong and hard right in the middle, but what he hadn’t thought about what would happen directly after. Sirius never was one for the long game. The blood from James’s newly bleeding nose started flowing down onto Sirius’s face, seeing as James was still on top of him. Now both of them were fucked.

Sirius and James were both chocking on the blood when James started laughing.

“Guess we both have dirty blood in us now don’t we, you wanker!” 

Remus decided it was the time to help them at that point, seeing as they both looked like Azkaban escapees. He shoved a still laughing James up onto the bench and dragged a coughing Sirius up onto the other one. Sirius pulled his arm our of Remus’s grip but didn’t resist other than that.

“Episkey,” Remus muttered under his breath. There was a crack, a groan, and James’s nose was back to its normal, perfect shape. 

“Wow mate,” grinned James, blood staining his teeth. “Where did you learn to do that?” 

Remus paled. “It’s just a useful spell, isn’t it?” he mumbled, busying himself with taking out a tissue for Sirius.

“Targeo,” Remus muttered again with a wave of his wand. Then suddenly the dried blood was gone from the compartment and the faces of the other two boys. Other than the red-faced, messy-haired, fuming Sirius, it was like nothing even happened.

Neither of them were seriously hurt. There’s only so much damage an 11-year old’s fist can do. But their prides were damaged. Sirius was practically shaking with anger when Remus asked his question.

“So, what the bloody hell was that about?” 

Sirius was already answering before the question was finished. “It was him, the git, he provoked me!”

“Oh, you  _ wanker _ !” James was almost laughing again, which enraged Sirius. “You hit me when I said your family were wackos. I provoked nothing! You Blacks are just like mum said, can’t keep your thoughts to yourselves - or your bloody fists.”

  
Sirius looked confused, but still furious. Before he could pounce on James again, there was a knock at the window of the compartment door. A small, pudgy boy was standing there on his own.

“Is there space in here for someone else?”

Remus was ushering him in before he even finished the question.

The journey was tense, hell the whole month of September 1971 was tense. After he was sorted into Gryffindor, everything went to shit for Sirius. The hat had barely even touched his head before it was bellowing "GRYFFINDOR". 

The more time Sirius spent with James, the more he started to doubt the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. The main growths when it came to Sirius’s political opinions really happened in October though, after that first September of daily fistfights over differing opinions on which people should have human rights.

James had to explain a lot of things to Sirius. Apparently, muggles didn’t live in caves or dirt shacks, and _ they _ didn’t want him dead either. Sirius was liking this new life, it a lot less stressful when everyone different to you didn't want you dead.

By his 11th birthday, Sirius was finished talking about muggle-borns in any way shape or form. He knew some now, and they didn’t want him dead as far as he knew. Remus was a half-blood and he was the smartest bloke Sirius knew. 

In November 1971, things were okay. There were downsides of course, like Reggie not writing him back after the letter explaining his new Gryffindor identity. And apparently, Reggie wasn’t the only one in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black who was disappointed with his sorting. Sirius was expecting a howler any day now, the first time he did something wrong. His parents couldn’t send one just because he was sorted into somewhere other than Gryffindor. No, they had to keep up appearances. They were waiting until Sirius slipped up.

He tried explaining this to his new friends but they just couldn’t understand. Their families weren’t like his, not as prestigious, not as scary.

But, despite all that, November 1971 really was okay. His new friends, Peter, Remus and James, were the funniest blokes Sirius had ever met. They didn’t even get mad when he said something stupid anymore, now that they understood he didn’t mean it.

Classes were boring. They were learning things that Sirius’s tutor had covered years ago with him. To amend this boring nature, Sirius had to make his own fun during class. And his methods of doing so were getting bigger and better every week. James and Remus helped him brainstorm new plans, but Peter did have to focus on the lessons sometimes. Sirius didn’t pull his pranks in class when he knew Peter was struggling. It was the least he could do in exchange for how Peter was helping him.

Peter was a half-blood like Remus. And while Sirius was too scared of what Remus might think of him to ask him his stupid questions about muggle-borns, Peter was different. Peter answered all his questions, he explained why Sirius’s parents were wrong. He was patient, so of course Sirius could hold off on his pranks in the classes Peter needed to focus in. 

But this new life. The life of a Gryffindor, the life of a lion, had Sirius happier than ever. At Hogwarts he was always so hyper, something he didn’t know he could be. He was way too loud, all the time. He just never turned off, he was constantly looking for something new to entertain him. He just kept going. He kept catching himself, being too loud or talking too much and stopping out of habit, before realising he was in Hogwarts now, not 12 Grimmauld Place. He could be as loud as he wanted. 

Naturally, it wasn’t long before his parents found a reason to send their howler. And send it they did.

It was brutal, and it wasn’t the last of them. That howler in mid-November started the routine of Sirius’s bimonthly howler. Twice a month, he’d get his parent’s howlers. They were awful. Even Lily Evans, who swore down she hated him and all his friends for the way they treated Severus, felt a bit of sympathy tug at her heart when she heard Sirius’s own mother call him a “filthy, embarrassing, disgusting, disappointment. No son of mine! A stain on the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, the worst heir a mother could ask for.”

The reason behind that particular quote? Walburga, Sirius’s mother, had asked for constructive criticism surrounding her son’s lessons and received the feedback that he could be boisterous.

Sirius saw his cousins laughing at the Slytherin table with every stinging word. 

That’s when things really changed for Sirius. December 1971, seeing their faces giggling as his mother screeched to the entire Hogwarts population that she wishes he had died in the womb. After that, things were different. He didn’t wonder what would’ve happened if he had been sorted into Slytherin after that.

James invited him to stay at Potter Manor for a few days after Christmas with Remus and Peter, but Sirius couldn’t say yes. He wanted to go, but he knew what it would be like at home for Reggie trapped in that house after Sirius left.

So he went home, to the dark depressing halls of number 12 Grimmauld Place. It was just as he left it, except now the portraits glared and muttered at him as he passed. Kreacher got him from the train station and he was back in his room in no time. 

The first thing he did was find Reggie. He was all questions about Hogwarts, bright-eyed and curious, but as Sirius described the Gryffindor common room and his new muggle-born friends, Reggie faded. That wasn't what their parents had said Hogwarts was like.

This was exactly what mother and father had said would happen. The dirty muggle-borns in Hogwarts had brainwashed their precious Sirius. Reggie knew he could never be a Gryffindor. He wasn’t some brave, headstrong idiot. He was a Black, he was a Slytherin.

That’s what really went wrong for Sirius. If Reggie, or Regulus as he was going by then, hadn’t been left alone there, with his parents and Kreacher and those bloody portraits along the walls, it all could have turned out very differently. But it didn’t. Reggie, Regulus, was left there alone for months, for a year, and while he was there alone he decided that he was a Black, a real Black, not like his older brother.

Christmas was tense. There were few gifts, a tasteless dinner and stilted thank you’s from everyone at the table. 

After a few days of hostility from Regulus, Sirius got mad. That’s just how he was, something he shared with his mother. While Reggie and their father, Orion, were calm and calculating, Sirius and his mother were crazy. The two of them, a match for each other, were stubborn, raging and psychotic. Where Reggie and Orion were cool, saving their anger for a better time or place, Walburga and Sirius were all emotions. The both of them were all hoarse screaming, boiling blood and shaking fists when it came down to it. Sirius and his mother were feral in a way Regulus and Orion could never be.

So Sirius got mad, really mad. How could Reggie do this? They were meant to be a team, the two of them, sitting on the stairs while plates and glasses smashed in the kitchen below. And now here was Reggie, choosing their parents over his own brother. There was a heated argument, about loyalty and family and whatever other concepts an 11-year-old can really understand, and then Sirius hit him. He just hit him. Not hard, just enough to shock him, to shock them both. That’s when Sirius knew he was fucked. The split lip staring back at him was like a death sentence. 

Sirius rushed out some hurried apologies then ran to his room to grab his trunk, which hadn’t been unpacked since he got back to London. He was at the fireplace with the floo powder in his hand before he heard Kreacher starting to shriek upstairs.

He spent that New Years at the Potters, then he spent the rest of his holidays there too.

The Potters were the nicest people he’d ever met. They welcomed him in, that night he appeared at 11 pm, shaking and crying in their fireplace. They comforted him while he cried about how he had ruined his life and got himself kicked out of his family forever. Sirius always was one for dramatics.

They even waited until it wasn’t noticeable that he had been crying before calling down James, Peter and Remus.

After the holidays, which it turns out were meant to be fun, who knew, they returned to Hogwarts. Sirius was sure now that these people, James, Remus and Peter, were going to be his brothers for life.

James was his other half. He was nearly as funny as Sirius himself, nearly as smart and nearly as good looking. They just clicked. Sirius would’ve sworn that they had been brothers, no twins, in another life. Any joke Sirius started, James finished. They played off each other perfectly, somehow always bringing up the standards of their comedy acts. They just understood each other. And James was good at explaining why Sirius was wrong. He was making him a much better person.

Peter was amazing. He was so nice to Sirius. He laughed at his jokes and pretended not to hear Sirius crying in the night after the first few howlers were particularly harsh, even though Sirius knew he could. He was always happy to listen to Sirius’s stories and never said they were lies, unlike James. Granted, James was right, but still. Peter was a great cook, which no one saw coming. He could make actual meals and crazy desserts. 

This was discovered after they’d found a way to sneak into the kitchens at Hogwarts. They were upping their game after spending the Christmas holidays together. They were a unit now, they understood each other’s strengths and weaknesses and Sirius was sure they could conquer all of Hogwarts if they wanted to.

And Remus, the last of the four, was just amazing. He was so smart. Sirius was convinced he was an actual genius. And he was funny in a way none of the other three could manage. He was funny in an easy way, in a better way. He just knew what to say and when to say it. He swore like a sailor, curses that not even James knew, and he folded his socks. Normally, that would’ve automatically made him a prat in Sirius’s book, but Remus was different. With Remus, stupid stuff like that didn’t count. There was still the small issue of him disappearing once a month for a day or two then coming back tired and injured. He said he was visiting his sick mother but Sirius knew that wasn’t true, it made no sense. Remus was lying and he wasn’t very good at it.

They called themselves The Marauders, because of Ms McGonagell. She had yelled it after them as they ran down a hall away from Filch, when he had caught them trying to take down a decorational set of iron armour for a Halloween costume. Lily Evans said it was embarrassing that they had given their friend group a name, but they hadn’t really given it to themselves, which Sirius didn’t let her forget. Not that he cared what she thought or anything, he just thought she should know, it wasn’t embarrassing because they hadn’t given it to themselves. He just thought she should know that. But, just to be clear, he did not care what she thought. At all. 

She was stuck up and she was a swot. And worst of all, she was friends with that prat Severus Snape. Snape was the biggest idiot out of all the Slytherins in the whole school. He laughed the loudest every time Sirius got a howler. He took the piss out of Remus’s scars whenever he wanted. He was always so mean to Peter, pointing out his insecurities, which were never too hard to guess. He tried his best to get to James as well but that would never work. Sirius didn't think James could give any less of a damn what Severus thought of him

Sirius on the other hand, he saw Snape looking at him and then whispering to Sirius’s cousins. Then all of them would laugh. He made Sirius so mad. He was an absolute knob. But it was hard to bring himself to care enough to do something about it when he had other priorities, like figuring out Remus’s secret.

Remus was keeping up the story that he had to visit his sick mother, but how long could a mother really be sick? James got mad when Sirius brought up that point, said he was having a Black moment, said that he thought Sirius had changed. Sirius didn’t bring it up with James again, he didn’t bring it up with anyone. But he didn’t stop thinking about it 

It was another five months after January before they figured it out. And by they, I mean Sirius and Lily Evans.

Lily and Remus were friends, how couldn’t they be. They were the two smartest students in the year, they both folded their socks, they both had secrets. They understood each other. Sirius didn’t really get in, neither did James or Peter. Lily was this stuck up, unfair, arrogant swot - not that Sirius would ever say that to James - and Remus was funny, Remus was smart, crazy smart, Remus was kind and careful and downright mental. Remus was a marauder, and Lily was Lily.

Remus told them that she was different from what they thought. She wasn’t stuck up, she wasn’t arrogant and she definitely wasn’t unfair. She thought they were all tossers, so she wanted nothing to do with them. But once she wasn’t near them, she was great. He said she swore almost as much as he did, she was a very quick runner, she even knew how to say the names of the flowers in Latin, which Remus thought was very cool. That’s all you really need for a friendship when you’re 11, quick running and Latin flowers.

Sirius didn’t think it was cool, he didn’t think it was cool at all. He wondered what would happen if he showed Remus all his Latin skills, maybe even his french skills as well. But he didn’t. Sirius didn’t like speaking Latin anymore. 

According to Remus, Lily was actually funny. Sirius didn’t know whether or not to believe it, I mean it was coming from Remus, who they could definitely trust, but this was Lily Evans they were talking about. She wasn’t exactly one for jokes. But it was coming from Remus, Remus Lupin, the most trustworthy person Sirius knew.

While Sirius was dealing with this dilemma of whether or not it could be that Lily Evans might actually be funny, Lily herself was doing what Lily did.

Lily was getting shit done. 

She, like Sirius, had sensed that Remus’s ‘sick mother’ excuse was bullshit. Remus tripped over himself to get away anytime she mentioned it, and a sick mother didn’t explain the scars and bruises.

She wanted to ask him, or a teacher, what was causing all this, but something held her back. She was smarter than that. If Remus was keeping it secret then she probably shouldn’t go asking Slughorn about it.

She was in the library one night, later than what she really should’ve been, when she bumped into Sirius.

Neither of them realised then that they were looking for the same book, the same answer. And neither of them realised, fifty minutes later when they bumped into each other again that they had both found the same answer.

They met at the door, both returning similar but different books.

“Sirius,” Lily nodded. She was too excited to put in the effort of making a jab at him.

Sirius didn’t even reply, he just nodded. While Lily was excited to talk to Remus, tell him she’d figured it out, that his secret was safe with her, Sirius was in shock. This was Remus,  _ Remus _ , who he trusted with his life. And now it turns out Remus was a liar, just like all werewolves.

He’d have to get him expelled now. His heart was aching, but he ignored it. He was a Black and Black’s weren't lied to. 

“Well Lily,” he nodded without thinking.

“Sirius,” Lily repeated herself.

Together they walked down to the end of the hall hastily, in silence, then as they turned two separate corners they both began to sprint in opposite directions. Neither realised the other had started to run. Sirius couldn’t hear Lily’s pounding steps getting fainter and fainter over the sound of his own panting. 

Sirius arrived back at the portrait shortly after Lily. She was clamouring through the tunnel with the portrait snapping shut behind her when Sirius started shouting the password at the portrait. They were both red-faced with heaving chests.

He rushed in after her and hurtled himself up the stairs to his dorm. He didn’t see Lily racing up after him, to the  _ boys'  _ dorms.

He slammed the door open to see James and Peter playing wizard snap on James’s bed. Remus was lying on his bed, just reading a book.

How could he do that? Just lie there reading, knowing that he’d been lying to Sirius since the day they met. 

“You! I figured it out dickhead!” Sirius didn’t have time to think of some strategic way to approach this conversation. He was just so  _ angry. _

“Me?” Peter cocked his head to the side like a puppy.

“Oh no, Petey dear, I’d say he means me,” James clapped his hands once and nodded gravely. “What he’s figured out I’m not sure, but I’m sure it was something big. Maybe what brand of shampoo Snape uses.” 

Peter and James laughed but Remus was silent. He understood what was going on, he’d been expecting it for weeks, just not from Sirius. He was looking up at Sirius from over his book. His eyes had this pleading look, this  _ please don’t, you’ll ruin me _ kind of look.

It was then that Lily Evans, the saviour that she always was, popped up behind Sirius, in the doorway to the boys' dorms.

“Remus, can I have a word?” she asked gently. It was a contrast to her red face and burning lungs.

James looked up, looked back down at his cards, then looked back up again. His eyes were bulging out of his head. 

“Lily? What are you doing? These are the boys' dorms!” Inconveniently for James, it was at that point that his voice decided to crack. Sirius saw through his blinding rage for just a second, to make space for some second-hand embarrassment.   
  


“Well I need a word with Remus obviously Potter,” Lily gave him a dirty look, stupid questions annoyed her. She looked at Remus with a sense of urgency and he looked back at her blankly. He had gone very pale altogether

“Can I actually have a second to talk to Sirius please Lils?” His voice shook a small bit, unnoticeable in normal circumstances. Everyone in the room noticed. James’s eyes widened even further at the nickname for Lily.

“I figured it out, Remus.” It was all she had to say. Remus had expected her to figure it out for weeks now. Sirius was the one that shocked him. A hidden threat, that Sirius.

“Well fuck.” And that’s when Remus started laughing. Then, as abruptly as he started, he went stone-faced. “Fuck.”

He folded the corner of his page and placed the book down gently. Then he stood up and started walking towards the door.

“Remus?” Peter called after him. Remus turned and smiled at him and James. 

“It’s okay Pete. I’ll be right back.” Remus left the room. Everyone was frozen in place. “Are you coming or what?” he called back to Lily and Sirius. 

He led them out of the common room and down a hall, then another hall, then up a flight of stairs. And then, before Sirius had time to even think about where they were going, they were at the top of the astronomy tower. 

“So, you’ve figured it out then?” Remus plonked himself down on the floor and Lily sat across from him. She took his hand in hers and smiled gently, her eyes were kind. Sirius’s eyes were glaring.

“I don’t care what you are Remus.” Her voice wasn’t gentle like Sirius expected it to be. She seemed mad, like he was. But not in the same way.

“What do you think I am Lils?” Remus didn’t look back at her.

“Oh you prat, you’re a bloody werewolf aren’t you? And I couldn’t give a damn. I couldn’t care any less Remus, I really couldn’t. So you’d want to pick yourself up from this freezing floor and talk to me about it?”

“Us.” It was the first thing Sirius had said since they left the dorms. “Talk to us about it.”

Remus looked at him, then back at Lily. Lily pushed herself up off the floor, then put her hand out for Remus and dragged his gangly body up with her. He stood across from Sirius, with Lily in between them.

“I was bitten when I was younger. I’m the same as I was, but different. I change once a month but I don’t hurt people, I’ve never hurt anyone, I never would.” Remus was quiet, but not in his normal soft-spoken way.

“You’ve hurt yourself, Remus.” Lily seemed mad. Sirius expected her to be all doting friend and gentle tones. This stubborn girl was a shock to him. She was more like himself than he ever would have guessed.

“Well, that doesn’t really count does it?” Remus seemed to think that was common sense.

“It does.” Remus looked up at Sirius again after he said this.

“I don’t care, Remus. I mean that. You’re still Remus. I promise I don’t care, and I’ll never tell anyone, not until the day I die, and even then I’ll keep my mouth shut. I promise.” Lily was fierce, that’s what it was. Sirius hadn’t expected her to be so fierce, so headstrong.

“Thanks, Lils.” Remus smiled in a small way, then looked at Sirius and stopped. “Lily? Thanks so much, but could I maybe talk to Sirius for a second?”

Lily looked over at Sirius.

“If you’re a dick I swear Black, I’ll kill you  _ and _ Potter.” 

Remus laughed and Lily smiled at him, then she left. It was just the two of them, in the dark, warm May air, up in the astronomy tower, looking at the stars. Neither of them said anything for a little bit. Remus looked at the stars. Sirius stayed safely away from the windows. He didn’t love heights. Eventually, Sirius had to break the silence.

“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything. You’ve been lying to me since the day I met you.” Sirius didn’t look at him. Remus sat back down on the windowsill. 

“Well, what was I meant to  _ say, _ Sirius? Hey, I know I just stopped you from trying to kill Potter because his parents don’t want all muggles dead but just thought I should let you know, a little footnote, I’m a fucking  _ werewolf _ ? How would that have gone, Sirius?”

Sirius went quiet for a second, then he started talking again.

“My mother says werewolves aren’t really people, they’re just animals disguised. She thinks they should be in cages.” Sirius looked at the back of Remus’s head as he said this, his wavy dark blonde hair down to the nape of his neck. It was messy, but not in the way James’s was. It was a gentler kind of messy.

“She said the same thing about Lily. When has your mother ever been right Sirius?” 

Sirius went quiet again. He knew, deep down, that Remus was right.

“Fuck you.” Sirius wasn’t used to swearing. He didn’t do it at home and it wasn’t the most common thing when it came to 11-year-olds. He tested the word out on his tongue and his lips. He understood why Remus liked saying it. “Fuck you, Lupin.”

“Well, do you want me to leave? Because I’ll leave if it means you won’t tell anyone.” Remus was still sitting there, at the edge of the tower, legs dangling out. He was looking up at the stars. “Or actually fuck it, I’ll leave and you can tell everyone. I don’t really care. I’ll just leave if you want me to. I’ll go home to my mum and dad. It’ll be okay really” Remus was still swinging his legs. He was braver than Sirius was. He was very brave.

“No.”

Remus looked back to where Sirius was, safely up against the wall. 

“No?” He looked confused.  


“No. I want you to stay, idiot.”

Remus turned back, shocked. He hadn’t expected this from Sirius, the boy who didn’t realise there were words other than ‘mudblood’ that you could use to describe muggle-borns just that last September.

“But don’t lie to me again.” Sirius didn’t look at him. He was embarrassed now about how dramatically he reacted, how aggressively. After hearing what it was really like, and after being judged by Lily. Lily’s judgement wasn’t a foreign thing, but it didn’t normally feel like this. It wasn’t normally about Remus.

“I can’t promise anything,” smiled Remus. “Come on, I think the boys will be curious about what just happens. Let’s hope neither of them want me dead an hour from now.”

“I’ll kill them if they do, Mooney.” Sirius didn’t even have to hesitate.

“Never call me that again.” Remus looked disgusted at the new nickname.

“I can’t promise anything.” Sirius was smiling for the first time since it clicked in his brain that Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

They both went back to the door after that. Lily was at the portrait waiting for them. They didn’t have to say anything. It was okay. 

James and Peter took less than 10 minutes to start asking excited questions. Mooney caught on extremely fast. They didn’t have the same thoughts as Sirius did, different upbringings he guessed.

That night, Sirius confessed all his worries to Peter, that Sirius was never really Remus’s friend, that his mother would find out and have him killed. Peter snapped him back to reality, told him to get over himself. However hard it was on him, it was worse for Remus.

Sirius figured he was right.

It was awkward then. It was awkward and dreadful and horrible, until it wasn’t. It took a week, maybe a week and a half, then everything was as it was, but better. The boys were all questions. James was already testing out names for this new issue. 

Furry Little Problem seemed to be the most favourable option.

Then, time went by quickly, the way it always does when you’re 11 going on 12. Before they knew it, it was June and they were all going home.

Sirius realised once he got off the train how much he had changed in the past 9 months. He hadn’t expected any of it. He had new members of his family now, those three boys. And Lily wasn’t as awful as he had thought, still awful though. Just not  _ as  _ awful.

Peter was underrated, he thought. He was funny, just as funny as James and Sirius, and he was kind. He was caring and friendly and he always went out of his way to make sure everyone was included in conversations. He didn’t mention inside jokes when he was near people who weren’t involved, he didn’t laugh when someone slipped in the great hall, he didn’t join in when James and Sirius went through a week-long phase of hassling the fourth year prefects. He was the one who they ran their prank ideas by first, to make sure they were funny instead of mean.

He had been the one to explain a lot of things to Sirius, late at night in front of the common room fire. He had explained the flaws in the arguments for blood purity Sirius had been taught. He explained why Remus was still the same Remus he had always been. He made time for Sirius.

And Remus, oh Remus. Sirius felt awful for how he had reacted to his furry little problem. Remus was as funny as he’d ever been, possibly even funnier now that he didn’t have to hold back. He was smart, like wicked smart. And he wasn’t just smart in the classroom. He knew all the spells needed for their pranks, he did all the actual planning, the hardest work, the logistics of it all. And he was kind. He let Sirius borrow his work. He was way too thankful. He didn’t seem to think he deserved the friendship the Marauders gave him, so maybe he wasn’t smart in every way. He was honest with Sirius when he needed someone to snap him back to reality, gently but firmly. Remus understood him. And Sirius liked to think he understood Remus as well.

And James, James was just on another level. James was his brother, his twin. Sirius needn’t even say a thought before James understood it. If Remus understood him, James was a part of him. Where Peter was patient and kind with him, James was firm and harsh. Sirius needed both to grow the way he did in that first year at Hogwarts. James was a no-bullshit person. When Sirius turned up in James’s sitting room after Christmas, his parents were the ones to send the owl back to London. James was the one to give Sirius the bed while the other boys slept on the floor.

James and Sirius were brothers, there was no other way to put it. They were brothers the second Sirius threw that first weak punch to the middle of James’s glasses on the 1st of September, 1971.

In June, 1972, Sirius Black was a very different person than he was that past September. You could tell he was the second he got off the train. He didn’t fully understand what had changed exactly, but his mother did. And that’s why she made that summer hell for him.


	2. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

At number 12 Grimmauld Place, June of 1972 passed the way July and August would: slowly. Sirius had expected his return to London to be bad, but not this bad. 

Sirius wasn’t happy there. He missed his friends, he missed Hogwarts. He even missed History of Magic with Professor Binns. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black didn’t really fit Sirius’s new vibe. 

It wasn’t the worst it could’ve been. Sirius’s father, Orion, was away on business for June and July, and in August Sirius expected he would avoid Sirius like the plague.

Walburga, as Sirius had taken to addressing his mother, was trying something new. Her new tactic was just ignoring Sirius. Sirius expected he would’ve starved to death if Regulus didn’t tell Kreacher to keep him fed, and fed well.

However, Kreacher’s interpretation of ‘fed well’ wasn’t exactly how Sirius would’ve seen it. They never saw eye to eye, Sirius and that elf. Where Sirius thought murder wasn’t ideal, Kreacher would’ve happily killed Sirius and all of his associates the second Regulus asked him to. Just one of their many differences

Regulus wasn’t talking to him. After Sirius hadn’t come home for the Easter holidays, something changed for Regulus. Sirius left him there,  _ left him,  _ alone. His only company was Kreacher, and Kreacher had been teaching him things. Kreacher had told him all about what Sirius was up to in that Gryffindor common room. Regulus knew now that Sirius was gone, and this hard-headed, lion of a boy had replaced him.

So, Sirius stayed up in his room, alone and quiet, pretending that he didn’t exist. His mother had forbidden him from receiving or sending any post. Sirius had no idea what was going on in the world. He didn’t know if his friends were looking for him, if they had forgotten about him.

It was mid-July before he started to crack. He had finished all his summer homework and was well into his second term of second year. Reggie hadn’t said a word to him since he walked in the front door. He had only gotten into two arguments with his mother, one resulting in the removal of his bedroom door and the other resulting in his banishment from the dinner table. 

He was embarrassed to say only one of the fights was about her blood purity political beliefs. The other was a result of days spent on his own and a chipped plate that he was being blamed for. 

The house was just so quiet. Sirius could feel it, suffocating him. And every day it felt like it got quieter. Sirius could hear the blood in his veins and the sound his eardrums made when he blinked. It was driving him insane. So, in late August when his father came home weeks later than expected, Sirius was ready to explode.

It happened late at night, the day before Sirius’s return to Hogwarts and Regulus’s arrival. Sirius was finally sick of Regulus’s silent treatment. He snuck up to his room, past the muttering portraits of his dead ancestor and along the creaking dusty floorboards, and he opened Regulus’s door. He didn’t even knock for fear of the noise echoing.

Regulus was in there, lying on his bed and reading a book. He looked up at the opening door slowly. His eyes went so painfully slow now, blinking, looking, changing, it was all at half speed. It made it seem like he was thinking too much. He was shocked to see Sirius where Kreacher normally stood.

Neither of them moved or made a sound. Regulus just lay there, looking at Sirius from over the top of his book. It reminded Sirius of that night last May when he and Lily Evans figured out Remus’s secret. Regulus looked a lot like Remus did, the scared, confused look in his eye. The hesitance to turn the page.

“Hi, Reggie,” Sirius breathed. The room felt so cold he expected to see his words fog up the air. Regulus stared back at him, blinking slower than what Sirius thought was normal. Neither of them quite knew what to do. It had been three straight months of ignorance, 12 if you counted the time Sirius was at Hogwarts. Later on, Sirius would wish he had sent more letters home to Reggie during those first few months. Maybe it would have changed something, even if he hadn’t been getting replies.

12 months wasn’t a long enough time compared to the ten years they had been two halves of the same brain though. Regulus had to speak.

“It’s Regulus.” Sirius didn’t reply for a moment. He looked at his little brother, so small on that big bed. Reggie wasn’t like him. They had gone from two sides of a brain to two sides of a coin. But they were still the same coin. They were brothers, no matter what.

“Reggie?” Sirius heard footsteps on the floor below them, the footsteps of his father. He had trained his ears to recognise them.

“Yeah?” Regulus forgot to correct Sirius for using the nickname.

“Did you ever think that, maybe, mother and father might be wrong about all of the blood purity shite?” Sirius knew as he said it that he was shouting into the wind. He had tried this, last Christmas, and that had ended with a split lip and two crying boys.

Regulus flinched at the swear, but he didn’t reply. He just stared blankly at Sirius. Sirius understood. He didn’t need to reply. In Regulus’s eyes, their parents would never be wrong. Because if they were wrong, Reggie wasn’t the heir, wasn’t something special, something lovable.

Regulus didn’t have the friends Sirius did. The two boys were similar, but not the same.

Before they could say anything else, Orion was standing behind Sirius in the doorway. Regulus’s face closed off again, cold and steely like their father’s.

“Boys.” Orion’s voice was deep, but not like Remus’s voice was deep. Where Remus’s voice was comforting and scratchy in a gentle way, Orion’s was frightening and icy. Regulus stood up once he saw his father, to show respect. He threw his book to the bed, not even folding the page’s corner to keep his place. Sirius thought of how Moony would die before losing his place in a book.

Sirius was tempted to fling himself onto the bed, a fuck you to his father. He didn’t though. His fear overpowered his flair for the dramatics.

Sirius tried his best to keep his body between Regulus and Orion, but Orion beckoned Regulus to him. Regulus scurried behind his back, like a lapdog. Sirius didn’t know how he could bear it.

“Father.” Sirius was staring at him, grey eyes cold. Regulus looked scared. Sirius looked blank. He had shut off. 

“Returning soon to Hogwarts Sirius. Are you prepared?” Orion was waiting to see how Sirius would react. Sirius was the wild dog and his father was the farmer with a shotgun.

“Very prepared, father. And excited. I’ve been missing the company of my friends.” Sirius knew what he was doing. Orion’s face soured. He jumped immediately at the chance for a fight.

“Those friends of yours, dirty blood.” Orion’s eyes were shadowed, his mouth was a thin straight line. Sirius felt a switch inside of him flick. There he was, 12 years of age, looking up at his father, with his greying hair. How dare he, how  _ dare  _ he, call Sirius’s friends dirty? The same friends that had promised to protect Sirius from his cousins if he ever needed. The same friends who sat up late at night with him when Sirius couldn’t sleep. The same friend who went through hell and back every month and kept it a secret.

Sirius stood there, across from his father, and he ignored him. He looked straight at Regulus. Reggie, who was stood behind Orion, in the empty doorway. Regulus didn’t know what to do, standing there. His limbs were robotic, sudden jerks and twitches. 

“Reggie,” Sirius pleaded. He could feel the anger building up, deep in his belly and behind his eyes. “Reggie, I think you should go.”

“No Regulus. Stay. You need to bear witness to your brother’s disrespectful actions.” Orion was so devoid of emotion it only made Sirius angrier. 

“Oh, you fucking  _ prick _ ,” Sirius laughed. It wasn’t the kind of laugh he was used to. It was something else, sickly and distorted. The madness his mother had passed down to him was rearing its head. “You’re pathetic! You’re talking about my friends? Look at you! You’ve _ got none _ . You have no one who you actually care about, because God knows you don’t care about me, or care about Reggie. You just-”

Before Sirius could finish, there was a resounding slap throughout the room, and Sirius’s face whipped to the side. Sirius heard it before he felt the stinging on his cheek. He felt the telltale heat behind his eyes, but he was too stubborn to let any tears fall. He turned his face back to face his father. 

“Apologise for your display of disrespect Sirius.” Orion’s voice was emotionless still. Sirius felt a hatred for this man. He stared back at him defiantly. Sirius wasn’t going to apologise, not in front of Reggie.

Orion waited a beat, then grabbed Sirius by the wrist. Sirius’s feet couldn’t keep up. He was stumbling after his father, down the stairs and into the cellar. His father flung him to the floor. The air left Sirius’s lungs. His wrist was already bruising.

“You are an utter disappointment, Sirius.” Orion was looking down at him, his suit dishevelled. Sirius wondered how it had come to this. Everything was so peaceful a year ago, an hour ago.

“Means the world coming from you Father,” Sirius smiled up at him from the cold floor, dead-eyed and pulsing with rage. Orion gave him a final look of disgust and slammed shut the cellar door. Sirius scowled into the darkness.

The next morning, his mother bade him farewell as he made his way onto the train. In this context ‘bade him farewell’ is understood to mean ‘ignored him completely while doting over Regulus’. Regulus had the decency to at least look apologetically back at Sirius from Walburga’s arms as Sirius hauled himself up onto the train before anyone else, without a word to Walburga.

Sirius felt a weight lift off him the second he sat down in the Marauders’ compartment, the same one they had sat in for all of their first-year journeys. He could see the other boys from the window. They were all saying goodbye to their families, their parents, Peter to his younger sister. 

Sirius felt an ugly, primal kind of jealousy wrench its way into his heart. He chalked it up to tiredness and closed his eyes. His head rested against the panes of glass separating him from the other Marauders. 

But really, he thought there was more than a few panes of glass separating him from the other Marauders. They were all raging Gryffindors, golden and brave, and he was this midway point. They were righteous and Sirius was angry. Sirius felt like there was something wrong with him, something muddying his intentions. He wasn’t pure-hearted like them. He wanted to be, but the way he felt looking out at his mother embracing Regulus proved he wasn’t.

They all had these perfect loving families but Sirius didn’t, he had done something wrong to stop himself from having that. Head misstepped.

His best guess was that it was his anger that took that prospect of a picture-perfect family away from him, but he knew that if he had to go back, he would have done it all the same.

Sirius cracked his eyes open. The boys had seen each other, they were embracing after a long three months apart. James was jumping up and down like a golden retriever, he couldn't contain his excitement. Sirius smiled. He had missed them.

He turned his attention away from the Marauders for a moment and over to a head of flaming red hair on the other side of the platform. She looked upset, her sister wasn’t speaking to her, wasn’t saying goodbye. The whole family seemed to be on the verge of tears.

He hadn’t spoken to Lily Evans since the tower incident with Remus, and he didn’t plan on speaking to her. She was the same Lily Evans she had always been. Maybe she wasn’t as ice-cold as he thought she was, but she was still a swot and a try-hard.

But looking out at her, saying goodbye to her family, Sirius felt connected. The way her sister acted towards her, it reminded him of Walburga. It was just a passing thought, Sirius dismissed it easily, but it crossed his mind nonetheless.

Before he could think too deeply about it, three boys were shoving each other to make their way into the compartment. Sirius closed his eyes again. He thought it would deter them, that they’d want to let him rest. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

James was pouncing on him the second he shoved his way through the door. Sirius smiled wearily. The Marauders knew Sirius wouldn’t be himself for a day or two, it had been like this every time he came back from time spent with his family.

While everyone was levitating their trunks into the overhead, and by everyone I mean Remus levitating everyone else’s, Sirius saw a familiar face passing through the hall of the train. Sirius tripped over himself, knocking the other boys and their trunks in his scramble to the compartment door. He wrenched open the sliding door and stumbled into the aisle. He was desperate.

“Reggie?” Sirius was louder than necessary. They hadn’t spoken since the previous night. The group of people who had just passed the compartment door stopped in their tracks. It dawned then on James that they were Sirius’s cousins, all of them. Regulus stopped, with his back facing Sirius. He turned slowly and Sirius was brought back to the night before, Regulus’s slow eyes. “ _ Reggie _ , we have space. You can sit with us.” Sirius was pleading at this point. His ‘ _ You can sit with us. _ ’ hung heavy in the air.

James’s heart was hurting. No one made a move. It was silent. There was a bank of grey-eyed, high-cheeked Black cousins standing behind Regulus. Behind Sirius was a tall boy covered in scars, a boy with glasses and messy hair and a short, eager boy, slightly less round-bellied than the previous year.

There was something animal in Sirius’s voice that made the atmosphere change. James thought his blood may have turned to ice.

Regulus looked into the compartment, at the people in the compartment. 

“There’s no space for me in there, Sirius.” Regulus was stone-faced, truly his father’s son. You could hear Orion’s influence in the long silences. Sirius on the other hand was wearing his emotions all over him, from the hunch of his shoulders to the pleading of his brow. He was Walburga through and through.

“Then we’ll  _ make _ space. Reggie, _ please _ , sit with us. Sit with me.” Regulus was taller than Sirius. They were the same age. Sirius was older by almost an entire year, but they were the same age. Sirius was older but Regulus was taller. James thought Sirius might cry.

“Don’t. There’s no need.” Regulus’s mouth was a thin, straight line. He had Orion’s mouth. Remus’s heart was hurting

“Reggie, Regulus, you don’t have to do this.” James had never seen Sirius like this before. It made his skin itch.

Regulus’s facade fell, for just a split second you could see the fear. There was so much of it in those 11-year-old eyes.

“You know I do Sirius.” There was a moment of silence. You could’ve heard a pin drop. Then, as suddenly as Sirius had burst into the aisle, Regulus turned his back and walked away. The rest of the Black cousins followed behind him. Sirius was left frozen, standing alone in the aisle, his eyes glassy.

Sirius walked back into the compartment. He sat back down, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. No one moved for a moment until James sat on the bench next to Sirius.

“Who needs him anyway?” James was angry. The Marauders had never really seen him angry, not like this. They had seen Sirius and James trying their hardest to kill each other, but they had never seen James angry like this. It was a delicate kind of anger. It was sadder.

“He’s my brother,” Sirius whispered it into the air, his head thrown back to try and stop any tears. His aristocratic cheekbones caught the light, pulling on his pale skin.

“Well, so am I.” Everyone looked to Peter, small and gentle. His voice was quiet and soft. “We all are Sirius.”

Sirius swiped at his nose using his sleeve, then he sniffed once. And then he nodded. And the other boys nodded back at him.

He was quiet for the rest of the journey. While the other boys read their new chocolate frog cards Sirius watched the countryside pass by his window.

He was quiet, but slowly he was coming back to himself. After they changed into their robes, time sped up. Before they knew it, they were getting off the train and into carriages that were to take them to Hogwarts.

As he saw the lights of the Hogwarts castle, Sirius felt a small bit of that fear, that anger that was burning his heart, he felt it fade. And in its place, calmness rushed in. It was something he wasn’t allowed to have at number 12 Grimmauld Place. It was the option of neutrality, the opportunity to make up his own mind, control his own life.

As the new first years were sorted, Sirius got more and more tense. Regulus was called quickly, his last name being Black. The hat sat on his head for nearly a whole two minutes. Sirius was fidgeting more as every second past. The entire Gryffindor table was looking at him.

Sirius sat there thinking, praying,  _ anywhere but Slytherin anywhere but Slytherin anywhere but Slytherin. _ Sirius knew it was selfish and cruel, but he didn’t want to be alone in his exile anymore.

Eventually, just as people were starting to wonder if they’d get to witness a hatstall, Regulus was declared a Slytherin. There were cheers from the Slytherin table, yells of  _ “at least one Black got it right” _ . But Sirius heard none of it. He felt like his ears were full of water. He looked up from his plate and saw Remus.

“Well, fuck.” Remus was as blunt as ever. Sirius noted a new scar just under his hairline. He thought it looked cool.

Sirius laughed in a defeated way. Remus had captured his thoughts perfectly.

Sirius was quiet through the rest of dinner, something the other Marauders had never known him to be. They tried their best throughout the dinner to distract him from the cheering at the Slytherin table.

The stairs up to the dormitory felt steeper than they were last year, but the sheets on his bed were the same, soft and white. The pillow had the same feathers. A lot had changed, but a lot had stayed the same. Hogwarts was still Hogwarts. The Marauders were still the Marauders. And, the biggest shock of all to Sirius, he was still himself. 

Sirius went to sleep before all the other boys, and woke up after they did. He opened his eyes slowly and saw them, standing there at the door waiting for him before they went to breakfast.

Sirius, bleary-eyed and exhausted, caught Remus’s eye. Remus took one look at him and nodded.

“We’ll wait for you in the common room.” Sirius knew Remus understood, the tiredness, the heaviness of it all.

“Thanks, Moony.” Sirius managed a small smile. With that, the group of three left.

Sirius was as thankful as he could be. He dragged himself out of the bed once the door closed. His ribs hurt as he pulled his shirt on. He was skinnier than he had been in May, before the summer holidays. His wrists were still bruised from his father’s strong hands.

He met the other boys mid-way down the stairs and they made their way to the Great Hall. It took Sirius a fortnight to get back to his normal self, all carefree grins and shiny hair. What brought him back fully was the prospect of quidditch trials.

They hadn’t tried out in first year, out of custom, but now that they were allowed Sirius and James were falling over themselves to get to the pitch every day to practise. Peter and Remus weren’t quite as enthusiastic to get 50 meters of the ground and whiz around on a wooden stick as James and Sirius. But when the weather was warm, which was becoming a rarer and rarer occurrence as October approached, they came down to the pitch to watch. Remus used the time to tutor Peter in the stands.

Like everything else in their lives, James and Sirius were a perfect duo when it came to quidditch. They made each other better.

Sirius was afraid of heights, but quidditch somehow didn’t count. James let him have his old broom, because God knows Sirius wasn’t about to ask his parents to buy him one. He was terrified while he was in the air, but it was a good kind of terrified. He liked it. The adrenaline made him feel high.

James was a natural, the way he zipped and zoomed around the pitch. He had been flying since he could walk.

When the time for tryouts came, James was the obvious choice for chaser. Gideon Prewitt, the Gryffindor captain, would’ve had to have been a fool to choose anyone else. 

Sirius’s talent, however, was more  _ hidden _ . Sirius was not a good seeker. Or chaser. Or goalie. But by god, when Gideon gave Sirius that bat, he shone. Sirius said it was all the pent up aggression, but whatever it was, it was working. He was easily the best beater Gryffindor had seen in years.

There was uproar when the team was posted.  _ Two  _ second years had made it. The outrage faded after the first few training sessions. It was clear Gideon made the right choice when they saw Sirius’s anger being released on that bludgeon. 

And Sirius had plenty of anger. Seeing his cousins whispering in Reggie’s ear, seeing new scars on Remus’s face once a month that he could do nothing about. It wasn’t as overtaking as it had been in the summer, it was just there. It was overshadowed by the intense joy he found himself experiencing with his friends.

Even with two evenings a week now taken up with quidditch practice, the Marauders found the time to organise pranks. They had to live up to their name after all. They were more organised this year, always improving. McGonagall was always telling them they could be exceptional students if they could direct that energy elsewhere, but what would be the point of that?

In first year, their pranks had been focused, small, often and targeted. Now, the Marauders were expanding. Instead of jelly legs jinxes at Snape in the halls, they were planning things. The benefits of having a Moony

They had assigned each other roles, ‘playing to their strengths’ Remus called it. Together, they came up with an idea, then they divided and conquered. James was responsible for planning. Place and time, that kind of thing. Sirius and Remus teamed up on logistics, they were the most knowledgeable about spells. Remus because he was a genius, Sirius because he had no better way to spend his time at home than reading his school books. Peter was the troubleshooter, and the lookout. 

After their first real brainstorming session of the term, it was clear all of them had transcended the realm of first-year pranks. They were on another level this year, mainly because of Remus’s organisational strategies.

They decided their first big prank of the term had to be a good one. Remus and Sirius researched charms, and the rules of Hogwarts to ensure they weren’t going to be expelled.

James made sure no one could strictly  _ prove  _ it was their fault and Peter found the flaws in the plan. 

And then, before there was time for anyone to figure out they were planning something, it was time. 

It was just an ordinary dinner at the beginning of October 1972, until it wasn’t. Mid-way through the meal, Dumbledore’s beard appeared to start growing. It was slow at first, then slowly but surely it accelerated. No one noticed at first other than the Marauders themselves. Dumbledore, who was simply ignoring it, continued eating his lemon tart. James could’ve sworn he was laughing slightly. Eventually, once the beard began to creep towards the Slytherin table, students began to notice. There was first a whispering, then a muttering, and then suddenly there was chaos. 

Students at the Slytherin table were scrambling back and pushing their friends towards the mysterious beard. All the other tables were in uproar, looking at the Slytherins standing on their table for fear the beard would grab them. 

Eventually, Dumbledore had to take out his wand to slice the beard back to his normal length, maybe with a few extra inches added for generosity. Wordlessly, Dumbledore vanished the remaining hair and the Slytherins were left standing on their table in silence.

After dinner, back in the common room, the Marauders were like celebrities. Lily Evans and her friends were the only ones who didn’t congratulate them. James seemed somewhat disappointed for not impressing Lily, but it was overshadowed by his pride.

The next morning, McGonagall called them into her office ‘for a chat’.

They sat in the four chairs McGonagall had created in front of her desk. Sirius, however, decided to sit in McGonagall’s chair, because he could. 

When McGonagall entered she was in disbelief.

“Mr Black, it appears you have _ accidentally _ sat in the wrong chair _. _ ” She gave Sirius a stare that would freeze the blood of a polar bear.

“Oh? Have I? You said to sit down in your office, Professor.” Sirius was looking up at the stern woman innocently.

“Well, perhaps I was not clear enough. I thought it was implied that you would all sit on the side with the four chairs.” McGonagall’s jaw was tensed.

“Oh! Well yes, that makes a lot of sense Professor. I feel absolutely silly now!” Sirius was smiling at McGonagall. She was glaring back.

“So, will you be moving then, Mr Black?” McGonagall raised her eyebrow at him.

“Absolutely, Professor!” Sirius hopped up and practically skipped to the other side of the desk.

In the meeting, McGonagall's first with the four of them together, she realised a lot of things. The main epiphany she came to during the ten minutes she could justify keeping them there, was that they were smart. They had predicted this, and they had planned for it. Anything she said they had a rebuttal ready. Eventually, she had to let them go.

Mr Lupin gave her an apologetic smile as he closed the door. She was left sitting in her office, stunned. They were like a younger version of herself.

Over the next few weeks, Minerva and the Marauders got more and more familiar. In first year, there had been pranks, yes, but not so sophisticated. Now they were organised, school-wide, mischief-makers. 

Some of the highlights in Sirius’s mind included, but were not limited to; replacing all the quills in the castle with the muggle pens that had pom-poms on the end; throwing Peter a surprise party, despite the fact that his birthday was mid-August; replacing all the toothpaste in the Slytherin dorms with honey; charming all the Ravenclaws’ laces to tie to desk chairs at random points throughout a week in November; and finally, simply bringing a horse into the castle without telling anyone. And then letting go of the rope. Sometimes simplicity is key.

A personal favourite of Remus’s was the Gibberish Fiasco of early December. They charmed all the teachers to only speak Gibberish whenever they were trying to say something relevant to the lessons. Dumbledore joined in, despite the fact they hadn’t charmed him.

After their Gibberish success, Sirius’s howlers started flooding in again. They were all similar, “disappointment to the family name”, “stain of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black”, etc.

If nothing else, they brought him closer to Andromeda, his cousin in 7th year. He hadn’t been allowed to talk to her previously.

While Sirius and Andromeda were bonding over being the black sheep of the Black family, the Marauders were testing out new ways to deal with the howlers. Peter’s strategy of putting it in the porridge was a front runner for a while until Remus’s idea. Remus came up with the genius tactic of just grabbing it and running. 

They made it a game, the Marauders and other third-year Gryffindors waited each morning for their chance to beat the record of the fastest time. The clock started when your hand touched the envelope and stopped when you got out of the Great Hall to open it. Lily Evans even grabbed it once. She was the current record holder. Sirius was sure she only did it to show what a good runner she was, nothing to do with him or his family. But that image of her sister on the platform in September kept coming back to his mind. 

Amidst their howler strategy improvements, there was a particularly bad full moon. Remus was confined to the hospital wing on his own for two days. No visitors were allowed in, as he was meant to be at home with his ‘sick mother’.

Sirius couldn’t stop worrying. He thought of all the times he had been hurt at home and had to recover alone in his room. He made it his mission to get them in.

After three failed attempts at sneaking past the matron, the Marauders, using their charm and wit, managed to convince Madam Pomfrey to let them stay with Remus in the hospital wing for a few hours. The main body of the convincing was done by Remus’s puppy dog eyes and Sirius’s threat of tears. 

When they finally convinced her to let them stay the evening, they all clamoured up onto poor Moony’s bed. 

Once they were all up there, cramped and still, Sirius realised his mouth was next to Remus’s ear.

“Oh. Hey Moony. Didn’t see you there.”

Once they were laughing, the worry faded away. The knot in Sirius’s stomach started to loosen.

After a while, Madam Pomfrey decided they were agitating Remus too much for the potions to work. This decision was probably accelerated by the Marauders’ choice to kick Remus out of his own bed so James could have a nice lie down after a hard quidditch practise. To be fair, it had been Remus’s idea. Remus’s driving force a lot of the time was his need to see James try and justify his actions to authority figures. It was probably the funniest part of any pranks they did.

Through a mix of begging and pleading, Sirius managed to convince the matron to allow him to stay to keep Remus company, quietly and calmly.

Quiet and calmness were well known strong points of Sirius Black.

Time passed fast from evening to night. All time passed fast when it was just Sirius and Remus. Madam Pomfrey seemed to think Sirius would be mature enough to leave himself at an appropriate time. Obviously, Madam Pomfrey did not know Sirius very well at that point.

That’s how Remus and Sirius managed to be lying next to each other on Remus’s personal hospital bed at 2 am on a Saturday in the middle of November. 

“Moony?” Sirius stared at Remus. His eyes were closed. Sirius’s were wide open.

“Yeah?” Remus sounded more Welsh when he was tired.

“What do you call a werewolf who’s working as an escapologist?” Sirius studied Remus’s face, waiting for a smile.

“I don’t know Sirius. What do you call them?” Sirius got his smile, sleepy and unintended.

“Hairy Houdini.”

After that, Madam Pomfrey heard their giggling and forced Sirius back to his dorms.

At the end of November, Gryffindor debuted their new quidditch team. It was a match against Ravenclaw. In the days leading up to the match, the Marauders charmed all of the books in the Ravenclaw tower to yell “NERDS! NERDS! NERDS!” anytime they were opened. That one was Remus’s idea. He never liked the Ravenclaws. Something to do with an elitist attitude. Sirius wondered what Remus would think of the Black family.

In the changing room before the match, Gideon gave them all a speech for the ages. His twin brother Fabien stood behind him, inputting at the exact moments necessary. They reminded Sirius of himself and James. They were in their 7th year, so this was their last quidditch season. They were Priwetts, members of the Sacred 28. He knew it didn’t really matter, but even just recognising it was a hard habit to kick.

He didn’t focus much on the speech. His head was too full.

They walked out onto the pitch to a mix of booing and cheering. Sirius could hear the voice of Frank Longbottom, a fourth-year Gryffindor, above the rest. He was the commentator. He was also going out with the team’s seeker, Alice Prewett, separate from the Priwetts.

Sirius had expected to be uncomfortable under the spotlight, in front of the whole school. But he found himself loving the attention. He found Remus and Peter’s faces in the crowd, next to Lily Evans for some reason.

Over the booming microphone, they heard Frank’s voice.

“And here comes the Gryffindor team! Alice looking as lovely as ever! Sorry Professor, I will be keeping that to a minimum. Okay, maybe not a minimum, but definitely not a maximum.” 

Sirius looked up at the commentator’s box to see a grinning Frank dodging McGonagall as she grabbed for the wand he was talking into.

The match went well, a 40 to 190 win for Gryffindor, thank Merlin. Sirius wouldn’t have known what to do with himself if he hadn’t won his first match. 

Sirius looked down to Remus and Peter the second the snitch was caught and consequently Lily as well. To his surprise, she was screaming and punching the air in joy. He hadn’t expected her to care. Full of surprises, that Lily Evans.

Remus and her were getting increasingly close, which was making James and Sirius increasingly jealous. For very different reasons. James had his silly cush, and Sirius was just a protective friend. If Remus became pals with Lily, he’d have less time to help Sirius with his boring essays.

Even though Remus assured Sirius that the Marauders would always come first, Sirius kept an eye on Lily. Just in case.

The Christmas holidays rolled around quickly after November. Before he knew it, Sirius was making plans for how to spend the break. He knew he couldn’t go back home, not now that even Regulus didn’t want him there. Remus had a full moon coming up, and he was going home to spend Christmas with his family. Peter and James were going home to their families as well, and Sirius knew he couldn’t invite himself along.

The thing was, Remus, Peter and James didn’t know this. So, when everyone was leaving to get on the train home and Sirius said he wouldn’t be coming, there was some confusion among the Marauders. 

“How will you get home then mate?” Peter seemed genuinely confused.

After Sirius explained, James was livid.

“You  _ prat _ ! You  _ know  _ you can come home with me!” James looked like he was about to hit Sirius, for his own good.

“But James, it’s your  _ family Christmas. _ I can’t just waltz up and insert myself into it. I’m not coming with you.” Sirius was trying his best to make James understand. He didn't want to be the intruder, the imposter in James’s happy family.

“For Merlin’s sake, Black. You really are a fool. My parents almost prefer you to me! The second the clock goes 12 on the 25th my mum is coming for you with a portkey, okay?” Sirius didn’t think James realised how similar to his mother he actually was. It made Sirius smile.

“Okay Jamie-poo, you can be my New Years kiss.” Peter and James laughed, and Remus smiled tightly.

“You can still come back to mine, Sirius.” Peter seemed upset that Sirius was going to be by himself for Christmas. “You might get lonely.”

“Oh, Petey dear, I won’t be alone. I’ll have Dumbledore. And Minnie will be here, and Lily Evans! And, Snivelly Snape. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him” Sirius clapped his hands and grinned. “And I’ll have lots of time to scout new places that will be optimal in our future plans of troublemaking.”

“Lily? Why isn’t Lily going home?” James was suddenly at full attention.

“She will be, her parents are in France until the 25th, so she’s staying here for a bit,” Remus answered before anyone had a chance to think. Just a reminder of how  _ close  _ he and Evans were getting. 

As everyone started to leave for the train station, Remus hung back.

“Hey Moony,” Sirius smiled softly, the way he only did for the other Marauders, and in the past for Regulus. “You’re going to miss your train.”

Remus stood awkwardly in front of him, looking down at his feet. “You can come with me. You can spend Christmas with us.” Sirius looked at him sadly.

“I want to Moons, but I can’t. I’m not part of your family.” It hurt Sirius to say. Remus looked him in the eye for the first time since the others left.

“Yes, you are Sirius.” Sirius’s heart expanded by 10 from those words alone, but he forced it back down in size.

“I’m part of  _ your  _ family, and you’re part of mine, but your parents don’t even know who I am. I can’t gatecrash your family Christmas Moony.”

Remus seemed to understand what he was saying. They had a quick, awkward hug and Remus pulled away, red-faced.

“See you in 1973?” Remus offered a small smile and Sirius grinned back.

“You know it, Moons. Try not to die over the holidays.”

Remus laughed, and then Sirius was alone. He walked back to the castle on his own. It seemed bigger when it was just him. 

He didn’t see anyone else until dinner time. It was just him, Lily, Severus, McGonagall, Dumbledore and a handful of older students left. There were two fifth-year Hufflepuffs, a seventh year Ravenclaw and five third-year Slytherins, none of whom were his cousins, thank Merlin. Andromeda had gone to her boyfriend’s house. She had invited him, but he had declined. He didn’t want to shove himself into someone else’s family.

Sirius sat alone. He and Lily were the only Gryffindors and Lily had sat with Snape at the Hufflepuff table. He wouldn’t come to Gryffindor and she couldn’t sit at the Slytherin table.

On his way back to the dorms after dinner, Sirius ran into Lily and Severus. He had matured since first year, but he wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t realistic to expect him to walk away.

“Oi! Snake, Evans!” Sirius called after them as they walked down the hall. He jogged after them in order to catch up.

“What do you want, Black?” Lily asked. She was obviously annoyed at the interruption.

“Ah, Lils,” Remus’s nickname for her felt wrong in his mouth. “I thought we’d grown past that. Me and you, two Gryffindors. We’re practically the same person!” Lily looked disgusted at the implication of them being similar in any way.

“We are  _ nothing  _ alike, Black. Just leave us alone.” Lily was overly optimistic if she really expected Sirius to turn around and walk away.

“Oh come on, the three of us are alike! We’re all here instead of with our families on Christmas Eve. That’s got to count for something!” Sirius was getting excited now, encouraged by the reactions he was getting. Remus, James and Peter weren’t there to remind him of the difference between mean and funny.

“Lily’s family wants her. They just got held up in France.” Severus was mad, more so than Lily and Sirius. 

“Oh come on, that’s what they always say isn’t it.” Sirius’s smile didn’t do much to help the implications. Snape stopped in his tracks, his face was twisting in anger.

“Just because your family doesn’t want you doesn’t mean all of us are like that, Black. I mean, if we can even call you a Black.” The hall was silent, Severus’s harsh bark of a laugh echoed through the hall. He continued.  “Just because you’re a reject doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Stop projecting, Sirius.”

Sirius went quiet. It was like a slap to the face. He turned to Lily before Snape. He waited for her to say something, anything. He was only met with silence. Snape started walking away, slowly, waiting for Lily to follow him. Lily and Sirius just stood there, looking at each other. Sirius raised his eyebrows, an invitation for Lily to say something. He was met with silence. 

Lily turned and walked after Severus. Sirius called after them.

“Fuck you Snape, and _ fuck you too  _ Evans for letting him get away with that kind of shit.” 

Lily turned around to look at him as she walked away. Severus didn’t.

After that, Sirius walked back to the dorms and went straight to sleep. He slept through Christmas morning, until lunch. He spent the rest of the day counting down the hours until Euphemia Potter, James’s mother, was coming to get him.

After what felt like weeks, Professor McGonagall came to get him and take him to Dumbledore’s office, where Euphemia would floo in to get him.

On his way to the office, McGonagall and him were alone. She asked him the normal, polite questions. Eventually, they got onto the topic of family.

“Mr Black, may I ask why you decided not to go home to your family for Christmas.” McGonagall, professional as ever, left the question hanging in the air. It was the kind of question Sirius could avoid without any awkwardness.

Sirius looked at his feet while he walked. “Well Professor, I heard you were meant to enjoy Christmas, and I said I’d give that a try.”

Professor McGonagall laughed sadly, then stopped walking and turned to Sirius.

“You know, Hogwarts is always open for you to stay Mr Black.” This softer side of her was a shock to Sirius.

Sirius smiled, a small smile, but a real one nonetheless. “Thanks, Professor.”

They made it to Dumbledore’s office staircase. McGonagall was already walking away before he put his foot on the first step of the staircase. Before Sirius made his way up, he turned.

“Professor?” He called after her.

McGonagall turned around to look back at Sirius.

“Mr Black?” She was a second away from turning and walking back to her office, merely paused.

“I’m sorry, for all the extra paperwork we cause you. We do try to make sure we’re always harmless.”

McGonagall smiled, the last thing Sirius had expected.

“Well, Mr Black, you have nothing to apologise for, considering it’s never proven that you’re the one behind the majority of the pranks.” Suddenly, Sirius remembered that she was as much a Gryffindor as he was himself.

“One of the greatest mysteries of Hogwarts, Professor. I’m sure whoever is behind those mysterious pranks is being careful not to hurt anyone though.” Sirius could’ve sworn he heard her laughing as she walked away. Minerva McGonagall, laughing. Sirius wouldn’t have guessed it possible.

Euphemia c ame for him, thankfully. Sirius was scared she would change her mind last minute, but she didn’t. She came to get him. The second she got out of the fireplace she was scolding Sirius for not coming with James. She said he was silly to even think he wasn’t welcome at their family Christmas.

Sirius felt himself beaming mid-lecture.

Sirius spent the next week with the Potters, hearing stories about James’s childhood and past Christmases. He didn’t mention his run-in with Snape and Lily. When it was time to go back to school, he actually felt sad. It was the first time he wasn’t rearing to go back.

For Christmas, James got two major gifts, among many others. The first was an invisibility cloak, a  _ real  _ invisibility cloak. The sheer potential was unimaginable. He also got two matching mirrors. To the average person, that wasn’t a big deal. But James and Sirius were creative thinkers. Sirius had a plan. He didn’t fully understand the incantations needed, and he couldn’t legally perform them outside of school, so he had to think of a workaround.

He had James bring the two mirrors before the Potter family house-elf, and ask her to enchant them so James and Sirius would be able to see and hear each other through them.

They didn’t have time for adequate testing, but Sirius was confident that they worked, and they worked well.

Their first day back from the Christmas holidays, they had Charms right after breakfast. At said breakfast, Remus was shovelling down food like he’d never eaten before. He was a growing boy after all.

“Wow Remus, you seem to be really _ wolfing  _ down your breakfast today,” Sirius grinned across the table at Remus. Remus hadn’t expected him to be able to resist any wolf jokes after a whole two weeks apart. Peter and Remus rolled their eyes, but James looked up from his toast, grinning as well. There was still scrambled egg in his cheeks, he looked like a chipmunk. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that it was right then that Lily Evans looked down at him in disgust, then turned to her friends and laughed.

Remus said it was karma and left the hall with Peter. James saw him meet Lily and Dorcas Meadows at the door, then start the walk to class with them. His eyes widened and his mouth, still somehow full of egg, hung open.

Sirius realised he’d be hearing about Remus and Peter’s betrayal until they got to Charms.

“Why does she like him and not me? Me and Moony are practically the same person! And so are me and Pete! I’m like all of their good qualities combined, and then some!” James was still confused by the time the door to Charms was visible, a lifeline for Sirius.

“Definitely James, and your modesty is remarkable!” Sirius had stopped sympathising about six minutes ago, which had been one minute into James’s monologue.

“I know.” James nodded for a moment, then stopped. “Wait a second, what do you mean by that-” Sirius heaved open the door and waltzed into Charms, four minutes late but released from James’s paradox.

“Oh, would you look at that Jamie-poo, here we are, in class. Time to prioritise our education and end this conversation.” Sirius grinned and threw himself down next to Remus and Peter. James was still muttering when he sat down next to them.

Professor Flitwick was a personal favourite professor of the Marauders. He was very easy to prank. He was new at Hogwarts, just out of teacher training, and he was very patient. 

He levitated worksheets to all of them, intended to gauge their knowledge. To nearly the entire class, it looked like nonsense. But Sirius didn’t even think before he started filling it out.

The Marauders were staring at him, as were Lily, Dorcas and Vivienne Prince from across the room.

Sirius was oblivious.

“You can read Latin?” James sounded beyond shocked, he sounded betrayed that Sirius hadn’t shared this skill with them. He imagined how it could’ve helped with their pranks.

“You can read?” Peter was grinning. 

Classes went by quickly, passed by James and Sirius doodling notes to each other in the margins of their textbooks. They threw papers at Remus and Peter, both of whom were trying their best to pay attention to the lessons.

Days went by quickly too. They always seemed to when Sirius was in Hogwarts. His time was taken up with pranks, quidditch and - albeit rarely - actual classwork.

Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw, but were relegated by Hufflepuff, who went on to win the finals. Gideon and Fabien Priwett were devastated. Time went on.

Before he knew it, it was nearly April Fool’s Day.

The Marauders had a lot of plans, but they were hectic. It was less than a week away from the 1st of April. Remus, James and Sirius were sitting on James’s bed, brainstorming ideas. Peter, who had gone on a kitchen run to fuel their plotting, was taking longer than anyone had expected. 

James opened his mouth to throw out a new idea, but before he could even try it Remus cut him off.

  
“No James, no repeats means no repeats. We cannot get _another_ horse-” Remus was cut off by the dormitory’s door opening slowly. Behind it stood Peter, small and timid and bleeding.

Instead of coming back with arms full of food, he was standing in the doorway with a crooked nose and blood all over him. His white shirt was stained, the blood had crusted from his nose to his chin. 

Sirius froze, he didn’t move a muscle for a moment, and then he was scurrying towards Peter like a wild animal.

There were cries from Remus and James, “What happened?”s and “Are you okay?”s. Sirius was already on his feet.

“I forgot the bloody cloak.” Peter had blood in his hair, it was matting, ruining the blonde colour.

Sirius got tangled in James’s bedsheets in his scramble to Peter. He got to him and grabbed his face, tilting it up to the light, left and right, up and down. Remus and James weren’t far behind. His face was already bruising.

“Who did this Peter?” Sirius was scarily calm. It wasn’t like him to contain his emotions. His face was stone, it gave away nothing. Sirius was gone. James had no idea who was standing in his place.

Remus cast a quiet ‘ _ Episkey’ _ and Peter’s nose snapped loudly back into place.

“Those bloody Slytherins. Snape and his gang.” Peter’s eyes were bringing with tears but he wasn’t letting them fall, a Gryffindor at heart.

“And who’s in his gang Pete, did you recognise anyone?” The shake Sirius’s voice gave his anger away. His hand had blood from Peter’s chin on it.

“Sirius-” Remus tried to get him to calm down slightly but it was useless. Sirius looked like he was about to burst into flames, or turn to ice. He was taller than Peter, but it didn’t matter. Peter could’ve been 10 foot tall in that moment and Sirius still would’ve been taller.

_ “Who?” _ Sirius sounded like he just wanted names, but everyone in the room knew what he was really asking.

“He was there Sirius, but he didn’t hit me. Regulus didn’t hit me,” Peter was trying to get through to him, but it was too late. Sirius was already walking away. No one moved as he grabbed his shoes from beside the door, and then he left.

James was hurrying after him, calling his name, trying to get him to come back. Remus went to grab the rest of their shoes, then he and Peter were out behind him in no time.

They all walked quickly behind Sirius. James was still trying to call after him, bring him back to himself. They had no idea where he was going, but they followed him. Remus knew there was no point trying to stop him. And, he thought James knew it too on some level.

James could see the muscles in Sirius’s back twitching, shaking. He didn’t understand how Sirius was going so fast without running.

They made it to the owlery in record time. Sirius slammed the door open. It made an awful noise as it banged against the wall. All the owls started hooting, flying around the high ceilings. And there he was. Regulus was sitting there, petting his owl gently. Peter didn’t understand how Sirius knew where to find his brother.

James could’ve sworn he’d been crying from the redness around his eyes. It could’ve been natural though, something to do with the inbreeding.

James thought Sirius might hit his brother, but he didn’t know. It was a new feeling, not knowing exactly what Sirius was about to do.

Sirius started towards Regulus, but Remus grabbed the back of his shirt. James heard him whisper.

_ “Think about this.” _

Sirius stopped. He just stood there, looking down at Regulus who hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor.

“Explain.” Sirius was still ice. The places were swapped, this time Sirius reminded Regulus of their father and Regulus was the one staring defiantly.

“ _ Your  _ friend antagonised Severus. He was basically defending himself.” Regulus had the answer ready to go. He didn’t look at Peter when he said it. It annoyed Peter, the way he called him ‘ _ your friend’ _ , as if he didn’t have a name. As if Regulus Black didn’t know his name.

“Do you really believe that?” Sirius knew the answer to the question before he asked it.   
  


“I do, because it’s the truth.” Everyone in the room knew it was a lie, both parts of the answer.   
  
“How many of you were there Regulus, how many of you were needed for Snape to ‘defend himself’ against Peter?” Sirius was angrier now, all red flamed veins and clenched fists.

Regulus was silent.

“How many, Peter?” Sirius acknowledged the other boys in the room for the first time. He didn’t take his eyes off Regulus.

“Five,” Peter whispered it, barely audible above the quiet hoots of the owls.

“Five,” Sirius whispered it back to Regulus, incredulous. “You think five versus one is a fair fight, do you Regulus?”

Regulus didn’t reply, he didn’t even look at any of them. He stared straight at the owl on his arm.

“Well then, I guess you’re more of a Black than I thought you were, Reg.” Sirius looked like he wanted to spit down at his brother.

Regulus looked up at them then, righteous anger suddenly available.

“Don’t you say a word about our family Sirius, as if you have any right. You don’t come home, you have no idea what we’re really like.” He was getting to his feet now, the owl flew away to its friends at the ceiling.

“ _ I have no idea?” _ Sirius looked like he was about to laugh. “Bloody hell Reggie, you have to be thicker than I thought if you really believe that.” Remus thought the words sounded distorted in Sirius’s unshakably aristocratic voice.

“You don’t! Because you’re never  _ there  _ Sirius! Why don’t you just come back, and apologise?” Regulus and his brother were still the same height, two meters apart and glaring at each other. It made James mad that they looked so similar, they looked more like brothers than James and Sirius did.

“How do you want me to go back to that  _ house _ Reg?  _ How do you want to go back to that house?  _ You fucking saw what he did to me, I know you saw.”

Regulus just looked up at him, just like he had all those months ago from his bed, from the hall of the train.

“You antagonise them, Sirius, every time. You always start it. You could just be  _ good.  _ Things could go back to the way they used to be, before all this.” Regulus could’ve been pleading, if he had been less prideful. That was another similarity between the two boys, their undying sense of pride.

“It’s never going back to that, Reg.” Sirius could’ve sounded hysterical if he was raised by a different mother. “You keep on choosing  _ them.  _ You keep on choosing this fantasy world where we’re better than everyone else. It’s not too late. You don’t have to  _ be like them _ .” 

Regulus looked at Sirius as if he was stupid, as if he was a child.

“You call me stupid Sirius, then you come out with that sort of thing. I have to be like them,  _ obviously, _ I have to be like them. And that’s because _ you _ can’t. That’s because of  _ you, Sirius _ . So I’m sorry if you don’t like me acting like a Slytherin, but that's what Slytherins do. And I am a Slytherin now. So, if you’re going to hit me, just  _ hit me _ .” Sirius deflated. His fists unclenched, his arms lay limp at his sides.

“Jesus fucking Christ Regulus, I’m not going to fucking hit you.” Regulus still flinched at the swearing. Sirius just looked at him sadly. His anger seemed to have evaporated and in its place there was just an empty shell, filling up quickly with sadness.

“You could have done it, maybe if you’d sat with me on the train, or asked the hat. You could have done it. You didn’t have to turn out like this. I would’ve stuck with you. You know that. I would’ve stuck with you. But not if you do this, I can’t help you if you keep doing this.” Sirius looked at his brother. This was the lifeline. All Regulus had to do was take it.

“Okay, Sirius. I’ll keep it in mind.” Regulus scowled and pushed his way past Sirius. James stepped in front of the exit. Sirius looked at him, then shook his head. James moved aside.

“Fuck you.” Regulus spat the words back at Sirius. It was the first time Sirius ever heard him swear. He slammed the owlery door after him when he left. The sound was the only one. Even the owls had gone quiet. Sirius just stood there, he didn’t move a muscle. His face gave away nothing.

“Sirius?” Remus tested the waters. Sirius ignored him. He walked through the other Marauders and down the owlery steps. He paused at the bottom, looking at all the separate ways his brother could’ve gone. Then he started the walk back to the Gryffindor dorms. The sun was setting on the grounds as he walked, the other Marauders around him. Sirius felt like an idiot.

“I know what to do for the April prank.” It was the only thing said on the entire walk back.

Days later, the multitudes of wasps and fire ants in the Slytherin chambers weren’t very hard to trace back to the Marauders.

That stunt ended them back in detention with McGonagall for the first time in a few weeks.

She had them writing essays about the limitations and dangers of transfiguration as they understood it.

They all did the work quietly. They knew the prank was mean-spirited, but one evening of detention was a necessary sacrifice to make after what Regulus had said, and what Snape and his gang had done to Peter.

On their way out, after the two hours were done, McGonagall stopped Sirius _ ‘for a chat’.  _ Famous last words when it came to Professor McGonagall.

“Sirius, if I remember correctly, last December you promised me that the mischief-makers around Hogwarts had no intent to harm. As far as I know, and of course, correct me if I’m wrong, I have only been a fully qualified and revered professor for the majority of my life, but I was under the impression that fire ants  _ harm. _ ”

“Yeah, well so do Slytherins miss. An eye for an eye.” Sirius had this bitterness in his voice that shocked McGonagall, she hadn’t expected it from someone so young.

“That leaves the whole world blind Mr Black.” McGonagall left Sirius standing alone in the empty classroom.

May passed quickly, all study sessions where none of them learned a thing because of James and Sirius’s messing. Peter and Remus tried to explain muggle music to them during one of said study sessions. Anytime they tried to explain it more clearly, James and Sirius only got more confused.

At the end of the year, they replaced all the Slytherin’s shoes with extra-large clown shoes, as a parting gift. Unluckily, Dumbledore figured out it was them and informed their parents. He was sorry to be sending the letter to Mr and Mrs Black, but not sorry enough to not do it. At least Sirius had some warning about what was waiting for him when he got back to number 12 Grimmauld Place.

As they packed for home, Sirius felt the other Marauder’s eyes on him. They were burning into the back of his head.

“I’ll be fine, boys.” Sirius tried and failed his normal carefree grin. The Marauders looked at him. They all looked sad. Sirius hated their pity, he was too proud for it.

“Well, you’ll have the mirror for when you get bored,” James was messing with his hair, running his hand along the nape of his neck the way he always did when he felt awkward. 

“Boredom in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black? Unheard of Jamie-poo.” Sirius smiled again, more genuine this time.

“You can always come to mine Sirius, I’m not a  _ ‘filthy blood traitor’ like those dirty Potters _ .” Peter gave a final attempt to convince Sirius to just come back to his house, just in case. Everyone laughed at his impression of the infamous Walburga.

“True Pete, very true, but you are a filthy half-blood, however, so I doubt Mummy Walburga would see you as an eligible friend.” Sirius was met with three sad smiles.

“Do you think Wally is a fan of werewolves by any chance?” Remus spoke for the first time in a few minutes. All of the Marauders grinned at each other.

“Only one way to find out, Moony,” Sirius had that glint in his eye again. Remus gave him an  _ I’ll put that idea on the maybe list  _ kind of look, a look Sirius was very accustomed to.

“Oh, I really will miss this.” James fell naturally into the motherly role as he pulled them all in for a group hug.

“I’ll survive boys, no need to worry about me. This summer, I’ll keep my head down.”

Needless to say, Sirius did not keep his head down in the Summer of 1973.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments please >:(( i want more of them
> 
> anyways I will be slowing with posting because this is nearly 10k and do not have any of my school work down hehehe 
> 
> ad don't worry, abba makes their appearance next episode

**Author's Note:**

> new work alert hehehe
> 
> big s/o tik tok for bringing hp back. hp renaisance babeyyy
> 
> please comment. honestly it could be one word or a whole novel. anything at all. i love and adore comments they're what keep me going
> 
> my tumblr is aoifeanamadan if you want to shoot me a message
> 
> it means aoife the idiot in Irish. there's a fada in amadán but tumblr doesn't let me put it in the URL grrr


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